It is customary to add ‘sweet’ before 16. That is how the hosts of the social game Tambola/Housie describe this number in their sing-song style. How sweet was SOY’s 16th year, or did it simply clock another year? The judgement rests with the readers, for me it was a pleasant experience.
As the readers are now aware, the blog was born on 7th June, therefore, its anniversary spans two calendar years. However, for some years, I have been dedicating the year to a music personality – generally from beginning of the calendar year to its end. 2025 happened to be celebrated as the year of RD Burman. I find there has been a dozen articles on him, some contributed by the guest authors, Ashok M Vaishnav and Dr Rajendra Deshpande. For SOY, which had a pronounced bias towards golden and vintage era music, this did seem to be an overkill. But there was also a revelation that RD Burman had a lot of fans, even among the lovers of old melody.
Concurrently, some Rafi fans could not have enough of him. Though his centenary ended in the year 2024, some spill-over articles continued in 2025 too. The year also saw another series of articles on OP Nayyar, helmed by the guest author Ravindra Kelkar, concluding on OP Nayyar’s centenary on 16 January 2026.
I must say doing three series of tributes gave me a great deal of satisfaction. I have to thank all the guest authors who embellished the blog by their articles, namely Subodh Agrawal, Ashok Vaishnav, Hans Jakhar, Dr Rajesh Deshpande and Ravindra Kelkar. I was especially pleased about my friend Subodh, whom I was able to pull out of hibernation. There was a time when he was a prolific writer.
I find I have also turned a book reviewer – I have been writing a couple of reviews every year. I started 2026 too with the review of Manek Premchand’s “Soulfully Yours: Ravi”
It is not possible that in a blog’s existence of 16 years, plagiarism and inspiration would not come in for discussion. The series on RD Burman brought this into intensive discussion again. That was when a reader included a link of 25 songs said to be inspired/adapted from some foreign tunes and also from our neighbouring country. The most striking instance of a note-by-note copy was Kabhi bekasi ne mara, kabhi bebasi ne mara (Alag Alag, 1985). ‘Bekasi’ and ‘Bebasi’ mean the same thing – ‘helplessness’. The absence of contrast created no end of confusion. Its original from Pakistani film Meharbani (1982) had no such problem – Kabhi khwahishon ne loota, kabhi bebasi ne mara.
I do get to hear many songs in the year off SOY which mesmerise me. One song which was doing the rounds on WhatsApp was by a girl, Supriya, from Samastipur. It seems she had sung it for the TV show Indian Idol. She was not selected there and was very sore about it. The song was Piya tose naina laage re from Guide. I find that video has been removed by the YT for “violating YouTube terms of service”. There are some busybodies who get pleasure in getting some video yanked off the YT.
I was able to give her a call and console her that this was not the end of the road for her. Music was much more than Indian Idol. I thought she understood it. She had enrolled in Masters in Music, and sent me her another recording of Itna na mujhse tu pyar badha. Coming from Bihar, I can say a lot about Samastipur, but suffice it to say that the current wonder-boy of Indian Cricket, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, is from Samastipur.
Itna na mujhse tu pyar badha by Supriya from Samastipur
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HZAgSDKow0I
This reminded me of one Soumyadeep Sikdar Murshidabadi whose name I wanted to highlight similarly a few years ago. I had immensely liked his Chadariya jheeni re jheeni; in fact, I found it the best among all the versions I had heard so far. That is saying a lot. Alas, though I was able to establish contact with him, he went incommunicado, and that particular video was yanked off the YT. After hesitating for some years, I am posting another verse of Kabir, Hoshiyar rahna re nagar mein chor aavega, which is available on YT. I like it a lot.
Soumyadeep Murshidabadi sings Hoshiyar rahna re nagar mein chor aavega
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4z8XX8H9Sw&list=RDG4z8XX8H9Sw&start_radio=1
Lo ji suno tumse kahte hain, ab tum bin chain nahn aaye by Mukesh and Surinder Kaur from Sunahre Din (1949), lyrics DN Madhok, music Gyan Dutt
We have so thoroughly dredged 1949 songs that we think we know all the songs. But when a friend introduced this song, I was amazed where this song was hidden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH_1B6yfvpM&list=RDaH_1B6yfvpM&start_radio=1
Wo aaye hain dil ko karar aa gaya hai by Sulochana Kadam from Malika Salomi (1953), lyrics Farooq Qaiser, music Krishna Dayal
But that was Vintage Era, you would say. How about 1950s when a hundred flowers bloomed and we know all the songs of Golden Era. But when the friend introduced me to this song I was floored. What kind of film must be Malika Saloni to carry a name like this? Sulochana Kadam, we have heard in several landmark songs, such as Chori chori aag si dil mein lagakar chal diye, hum tadapate rah gaye wo muskura ke chal diye. In Wo aaye hain, I can’t differentiate her voice with Lata Mangeshkar. Listen to this gorgeous song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_8QJuhhMDg&list=RDy_8QJuhhMDg&start_radio=1
Jaddanbai sings
We all know Jaddanbai (1892-1949) as the mother of Nargis, and one of the earliest lady music composers of our films, pre-dating Saraswati Devi. Some of us were also familiar with her songs. Now thanks to S Gopalakrishnan I get the additional information that she was a disciple of Shrimat Ganpat Rao, Ustad Moujuddin Khan, Ustad Chaddu Khan, Ustad Laab Khan and Ustad Barkat Ali Khan and sang this ‘Deva Deva Satsang‘ in Raag Shankara. Moujuddin was the most respected Thumri singer in his time. This description made me look at Jaddanbai with great respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eixoZmNyeNw
AR Rahman in an unnecessary controversy again
High and lows in an artiste’s career is a normal phenomenon. One day AR Rahman was on the top of the world. It seems that for the last eight years or so he is not getting that many offers. He chose to relate it to his religion, that the powers that be have perhaps turned communal and Bollywood is discriminating against him. Within 24 hours he discovered that he was a proud Indian and the country has given him too much. This was strange, and totally uncalled for. We liked him for his music; if his career was facing a low, that was people’s choice. In my last Anniversary post, AR Rahman figured prominently for two plagiarism charges. One related to the song Veera veera veera veera from the film PS-2. Ustad Waseefuddin Dagar filed a case alleging that it was plagiarised from his family heirloom Shiv Stuti in Raag Adana. Delhi High Court agreed with Dagar and directed Rahman to make an interim payment of ₹2 crores to him. He had not yet overcome another charge by Kazi Nazrul Islam family that AR Rahman had mauled the Kazi’s tune of Karar oui lauho kapat for the film Pippa based on Bangladesh liberation. Many on SOY seemed to agree with both the plagiarism charges. Someone has rightly said, “Those living in glass-houses..”. But US gave him a lot of honour during the evening cultural programme for visiting Secretary of State, when the US Ambassador to India, announced with flourish, now a special artist would entertain the guests. And AR Rahman came out from behind the curtain like a rockstar, singing Jai ho etc
Acknowledgements and Disclaimer
The song links have been given from the YouTube only for the listening pleasure of music lovers. This blog has no commercial interest, and no makes no claims or suggests, either directly, or indirectly, any copyright over these songs which vests with respective copyright holders.
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